For left-behind families, long-term disappearances trigger a severe psychological phenomenon known as 'ambiguous loss'.
As the rising cases of missing children in the country continue being reported, parents, caregivers and those children remain the most devastated.
Data from Child Protection Information Management System under the Directorate of Children services shows that there are 44,000 children in children’s charitable institutions whose parents have not been identified and are being taken care of by the government, 1,636 cases of missing children, 1,952 abduction cases, 6,820 abandonment cases and 173 trafficking cases reported between January 2025 and March 2026.
Clinical psychologist Dr Joyce Wangari, notes that the way in which a child goes missing links to the kind of vulnerability that remains in the family. She notes that just like their parents and caregivers, the missing children equally go through a lot of mental anguish wherever they are, even as the search about their whereabouts go on.
“This is what psychologists call ambiguous loss or disenfranchisement, especially if it is over a long period of time because there is no certainty of closure. People watch the news in the evening and hope that somehow somebody might find their missing child. There is no clear resolution so the family is torn between hope and grief at the same time,” she says.
Over time, she observes that chronic trauma and anxiety build among the involved parties as a result of repeatedly thinking of the last instances when the child disappeared, which makes the family to always be fearing the worst. Such scenarios, she says, make the parents and caregivers struggle to sleep and feel exhausted emotionally as they continue searching for signs and information about the child.
“Those symptoms are linked to post traumatic stress disorder and complicated grief. If the stress becomes prolonged, it is likely to also lead to depression and panic attacks – a severe anxiety disorder where you even have chest pain as if you cannot breathe and feel like you are almost dying.”
During this period, Dr Wangari says that guilt and self-blame becomes very common as parents begin to feel hyper responsible and feel that they failed to protect their children, a case she describes as a sense of survivor guilt.
“This loss is what somebody would feel when bereaved, but unlike death it is ambiguous; there is no ritual, no closure and it is uncertain. Usually, the main question is that we don’t know if they are alive or not, if they are suffering and how much longer to continue searching. That uncertainty can actually freeze the grieving process psychologically and people are in a state of perennial shock.”
She further notes that situations get worse in cases of long-term disappearances, where conflicts begin in families and they isolate from social events.
“The other effect is the breakdown of the family. Sometimes, a family can fragment because of a missing child because it is on top of the sibling relationship. Imagine if there was a second born or a middle born who is now not available. Something happens in the sibling dynamics and relationships will shift. Even in marriages if, for example, one spouse blames the other.”
Data from Missing Child Kenya Foundation shows that between 2016 and 2019, a total of 565 missing child profiles were received. The cases were driven by peer pressure, anxiety over academic transitions, family conflict and increased unsupervised movement in urban areas. Equally, the foundation reports that approximately six to seven children out of every ten reported missing are eventually found alive, while a significant number remain unresolved long after reports are filed.
According to Dr Wangari, the social and maturity developments of a child get affected when they go missing just as their identity formation also gets interrupted, hence a delayed development.
“Most of them fall out of the school system. A lot of substance use can also start, which is a result of feeling victimised or deregulated; meaning they are not peaceful. They want something to remove the pain and they feel the need for self-harm, which is a very dangerous moment that can even be suicidal depression. They have a lot of distrust for authority, become withdrawn, but others become aggressive because now they are disconnected from their source of stability,” Dr Wangari tells Parenting.
Trauma impact
She notes that many children will have trauma symptoms like nightmares, flashbacks, and fearfulness regardless of the type of disappearance. Additionally, they become paranoid and are always looking over their shoulder, and become numb emotionally.
“The impact of trauma depends on how long they were missing. The age of the child determines the developmental maturity milestones and then the circumstances involved. In cases of abuse and exploitation, sometimes the memory can be repressed. If somebody felt they suffered in the hands of other people, they can try to protect the memory by trying to forget what happened if it was horrible, depending on whether the parents or caregivers were protective or harmful during the absence of the child,” she says while explaining that in most time, healing does not mean forgetting. Instead, many people learn to live with the pain as they continue with life while carrying around the uncertainty.
She explains that some children can appear emotionally distant because they may think a lot of self-blames, shame and guilt regardless of how they went missing, for fear of being beaten for having left home. This, she says, makes it even difficult for families to reunite.
“Even something like re-unification is usually complex. Sometimes it is confusing: there is anger, fear, guilt, emotional shut down. It is not automatically joyful. Remember, if children are feeling guilty, they may not automatically have that immediate happiness or gratitude to be back or feeling emotionally close,” Dr Wangari tells Parenting.
She advises that when a family reunites with their children who have been missing, they should not force conversations of what happened until when the child feels ready to talk about it.
“Re-unification is an ongoing process that requires prioritising emotional safety and professional support of a painful story. If not well handled, families can find themselves extremely traumatised to the extent that, if psycho-education is not given, they will feel completely burnt out and their grief experience can become worse,” she observes.
Dr Wangari says that it is possible for children to never go missing from families but that needs a multi-stakeholder engagement. She advises parents to make sure that every child is aware of their full name, full name of their parents, full name of the school and the area where they live as soon as a child starts talking.
She also reminds each family to have a code word that a child can tell their parents when they are not comfortable so that parents can swiftly move when a child says it.
“Then, children’s playtime has become unsupervised because parents are very busy looking for money. One easy solution is homesteads coming together and creating a neighbourhood alliance which means that you just ask your neighbour to check on your child. You should never leave your child unattended, especially in crowded places, in urban areas, and unfenced play areas. It is the adults’ roles to ensure that children are safe.”
Parents and caregivers are advised to call the state department of children service via 116 or report immediately to the police or to the children’s department.
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